Thursday, December 15, 2016

Readers are often happy to receive a bookstore gift
certificate, but if you'd like to choose the genuine item as a Hanukkah or
Christmas gift, these are some newer possibilities.

Die-hard Harry Potter fans are probably alone in
continuing to read everything J.K. Rowlings publishes (two e-books of short
stories about Hogwarts and a hardcover "rehearsal script" for the
first Potter play, all during 2016). But if your older fan read the first
seven, then number eight may be the right gift. Titled "Harry Potter and
the Cursed Child," this play takes readers into the grown-up world of
Harry Potter, father of three. I haven't read it, and don't know what to
expect, but hey—it's out there, and shouldn't be ignored.

Readers with a social change interest may want to
delve into a book I've mentioned before, "Hillbilly Elegy." It's a
memoir from former Marine and Yale Law School graduate J.D. Vance about his impoverished
upbringing in Appalachia, outlining the struggles of a white, working class
family. An engaging history, this memoir has humor, but also a deeply
researched portrayal of what it's like to be a member of the disappearing
"hillbilly" community.

Jodi Picoult has a facility for choosing hot news
issues and turning them into fiction. She's right on track this year with
"Small Great Things," the story of an African American woman who is
rejected as a hospital nurse for their baby by a white supremacist couple. But
that, of course, becomes complicated during a medical crisis, leading to
troubles for the nurse's whole family. Picoult is a strong writer, a born
storyteller, and a dedicated researcher. Get it for book club members and people
with an interest in Picoult's writing.

Millions of readers love Jane Austen. The Austen
Project asked six authors to write a new take on one of her famous novels:
"Sense and Sensibility," "Northanger Abbey," Pride and
Prejudice," "Emma, "Persusasion" and "Mansfield
Park." They are being published as finished—number four, released this
year, promises to be a very enjoyable read. "Eligible: A Modern Retelling
of Pride and Prejudice" by Curtis Sittenfeld, centers around the famous
Bennet family and Mr. Darcy, transformed into a modern era.

Along the same "project" vein, a series of
fictional retellings of Shakespeare this year featured "Shylock is My
Name" by Howard Jacobson.Hisversion of "The Merchant of Venice" includes Nazi football
players, in a dramatic reflection on the grasping power of anti-Semitism. Vital
for the times we're in.

On my would-be Christmas list is Colson Whitehead's "Underground
Railroad." Whitehead was keynote speaker at this year's Boston Book
Festival. For this book alone, he's won more than a dozen top awards—an impressive
accomplishment. In the book, a young couple attempts to escape slavery aboard
the Underground Railroad—this time a real, functioning transportation system.
But it's far from a fantasy, as readers will discover. There's adventure and
high tension, with richly drawn characters.

Epic series fans are likely to enjoy a newly
released, photo-infused book, "The Making of Outlander—a good gift for
fans of the series. Though the lush Diane Garabaldon series has a ways to go in
production segments, all the books are available, starting with
"Outlander."

Those who have loved either version of the series
"Poldark" may enjoy Robin Ellis's "Making Poldark," a newly
released, updated version of his memoir about the original 1970s series (Author
Winston Graham hated the slutty Demelza portrayal in the first). Gifts of an
entire series are always fantastic to receive, if a little pricey to provide.

Thriller fans may enjoy a book that mesmerized Sue
Grafton: Sheri Lapena's "The Couple Next Door." With a dozen
unexpected plot twists and taut writing, Lapena's mystery—surrounding a couple
who leave their baby at home while attending a party next door—is called
riveting. Writers like Harlan Coben, Lee Child and Lisa Gardner are recommending
it.

Finally, for lovers of symphonic
music, comes "Absolutely on Music," released in November. It's a special
book of conversations between author Haruki Mirakami and his friend, former
Boston Symphony conductor Seiji Ozawa. From recorded conversations, their discussions
of music and writing cover everything between the adored classicists to more
contemporary greats, like Bernstein and Glenn Gould. Look to this for insights
into the broader world of music.

OK. There are lightning
rods up our spines this month, in the wake of an election no one expected to
turn out as it did. Some fear the future at this point, while others are sanguine
about the result. But questions about race, poverty, immigration and human
rights have been raised, and this is a good time to seek perspective through
the experiences of other people, other places and times. It's also a good practice
to keep up with what current historians and experts say. But in the meantime,
book groups may find much to consider in this list of books.

There have been equally
trying times, terrifying experiences, and countless books reflect them. I can
only refer here to a few—some of it fiction but mostly nonfiction books
spanning the world. This is a good time to understand others' struggles, and no
time at all to live in a vacuum:

— "A Fine
Balance" is Rohinton Mistry's novel about a woman cast out of her
brother's home for refusing to buckle to family and societal expectations,
during a time that Indira Gandhi is ruthlessly cleansing India of its own
"deplorables," the untouchables. An amazing glimpse into a world of
rules and losses, and unfathomable courage. Fiction.

— "First They Killed
My Father" is a heartbreaking story, told a few decades later by Houng
Ung, separated from her family in Cambodia during 1975. In Pol Pot's ruthless
Khmer Rouge slaughter, Ung, a child of five, searches without success for her
brothers and sisters, only to be placed in a work camp. She persists, she
lives. And in the end, she finds life and family again. Memoir.

—"Don't Let's Go to
the Dogs Tonight" is a surprise. Alexandra Fuller is the daughter of a
white family in Rhodesia during the Civil War. She combines the winsome details
of a child's life against harrowing changes to the world she inhabits, as they
cling to their African home amid the terror of war. Memoir.

—"Lakota Woman,"
Mary Crow Dog (aka Brave Bird) married Leonard Crow Dog, a leader in the
American Indian Movement. She died young—58. She wrote of the cruelly
impoverished life she led on a Sioux reservation, and of her education in a
school which forbade Sioux language and force-taught Christianity. She
continues her story into the time of the second Wounded Knee conflict, in an
autobiography made into a profound documentary on PBS. Memoir.

—"I Know Why the
Caged Bird Sings" and "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou, one of our
times' most striking voices. Her words feel more pertinent this month: "We may encounter many defeats but we
must not be defeated. That in fact it may be necessary to encounter defeats so
we can know who we are what can we overcome, what makes us stumble and fall and
somehow miraculously rise, and go on." Memoir, poem.

—"Love Medicine"
by Louise Erdrich is the first of her many novels about contemporary Native
American life, in all of its aspects—humor, loss and violence, family. It was,
for me, an open-eyed look into the soul of the Native experience in America and
an entry into the work of an amazing American writer. Novel.

— "Men We Reaped"
by Jessamyn Ward ("Salvage the Bones") is a stark recollection of
growing up in Mississippi and watching five young men she knew and loved as
they encounter violence, drugs, hopelessness and, ultimately, death. Not the
easiest subject, but certainly an important one, and beautifully written.
Memoir.